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Hello!When my Mom decided she wanted to have a birthday party she looked me in the eye and said “You know you’re making my invitations, right?” and my reply was “I wouldn’t have it any other way!” So after weeks of designing, printing, cutting, and splattering calligraphy gouache all over red envelopes I am happy to say that yesterday was mail day. In the end, they turned out great but I may have pulled out a few hairs before it was over with.

My mom loves red and decided she wanted red and white for the color scheme. And since her birthday is in February, roses quickly became the decor staple. I decided to do a 5×7 flat panel card. I let her chose between a mounted and unmounted card. She chose mounted. More cutting, but that was the easy part.

I love, love, love how the invitation turned out.

The hard part was addressing the envelopes. Although I had been practicing my calligraphy and was hesitant since this would be my first time doing a project of this nature, I was not prepared for how difficult this turned out to be. The envelope texture was not as smooth as I would have liked and the gouache I mixed would immediately drip from the nib as soon as it touched the paper. FRUSTRATING! A trip to the art supply store was in order.

I purchased gum arabic, new nibs, extra gouache (feeling really hopeful) and a jar of Daler Rowney Pro White (they didn’t have the DR PH Martins Bleedproof White)as a backup plan. Adding the gum Arabic to the mixed gouache helped a bit but the biggest difference was the new nib. At least then I was able to get them done. They are certainly far from perfect, but they are done. And that feels pretty awesome.

Once they were all addressed, I added a return address label to the back. I didn’t want to do it in calligraphy and I really like the rose on the back of the envelope. I was happy to get a postage stamp that matched so well and even happier when I dropped them into the outgoing slot at my post office.